Improved low-grade steel for axles, tires



amt seat emu can.

HENRY BROOK WOODCOCK, OF 'LOW MOOR, ENGLAND.

Letters Patent No. 93,385, dated August 3, 1869.

, IMPROVED LOW-GRADE swam. ron AXLES, 'rmns, 84c.

' The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

its capacity to resist wear, and giving to it the nature of steel, suitable for the rails for railroads, tires for locomotive-wheels, and other purposes.

My invention consists in adding to the raw pig-iron, in the process of puddliug, from one-tenth to onesixth, G in weight, of ordinary blistered steel, to the weight of pig-iron. The steel does not become liquid with the iron, but, when taken out with the puddled ball adheres to it in small pieces, of the sizes originally introduced, and, in that condition, the mass is brought under a heavy hammer. The steel becomes 'finnly incorporated with the iron, and gives to the whole the nature of low steel, sufiicient to greatly increase the wearing-surface of any article manufactured of it, especially to rails and locomotive-tires.

My said process is worked in the ordinary paddlingfurnace during the process of converting pig, and, just before the charge comes to nature, a certain quantity of blisterer steel, varying in proportion from about onetenth to one-sixth, (-3 in weight, of the mass of iron with which it is to he incorporated, is thrown into the charge, and the whole puddled together.

The steel should be cut into small pieces, and, when charged into the furnace, the pieces should be equally distributed or mixed with the iron in the puddling-furnace, so as to' insure the mass being homogeneous.

And although I have stated that the proportion oil steel should be from one-tenth to one-sixth, in

weight, of the mass of iron, those proportionsgiving the various grades required, I do not wish to be understood as limiting my claim of invention to those proportions. V

The steel thus mixed with the pig or refined metal, either during its first or second'stflgfl of being worked, may be of any suitable kind; but blistered steel is preferable. It is worked or bailed up with the iron,

which maybe done by any puddler in the ordinary r process of pu'ddling, and it will give to the iron the improved qualities hereinbefore named.

\Vhat I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-t- The process, substantially as herein described, of

manufiicturiug metal possessing the qualities hereinbefore described, by miiring steel with crude iron in the process of puddling, substantially as herein described.

HENRY BROOK WOODCOCK.

\Vitnesses W. B. LANG, 

